


Now I'm Sane (But I Would Rather Be Gaga)

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Pre-X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 23:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11770989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: Scully wants to get back out there after the breakup, but it's not that easy.





	Now I'm Sane (But I Would Rather Be Gaga)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own The X-Files or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Special thanks to Lorenz Hart for the title.

She met Paul last month, at a lecture about the Black Death.  They were sitting next to each other and struck up a conversation before the talk started; he taught medieval history at Georgetown, he told her.  Afterwards, he asked her if she wanted to get coffee.  She thought for a minute and then said yes.

They’d been out three times by now.  She liked spending time with him; he was smart, witty, attractive.  He was Catholic.  Widowed six years, no kids.  A good kisser, but they were taking things slow.  Her call.  He was very gentlemanly about it.  She could tell he was into her, though; she wondered how he’d respond if she said that she didn’t want to take things slowly, not slowly at all.  If she told him that they should run away tomorrow and get married, get a nice little house with a picket fence and a master bedroom with a walk-in closet full of skeletons.

She thought that he was probably too sensible to go for something like that.

She mentioned Paul to her mother one day, when they were talking on the phone.  “He sounds very nice,” her mother said, her voice as flat as it could possibly be.  She’d heard that voice before, back in June, when she’d gone on a couple of dates with a guy she’d met at her college reunion (he hadn’t returned her call after the second date; she hadn’t followed it up).  She’d heard it earlier, in March, when she’d gone out once with another doctor from the hospital (after she’d gotten home, she’d looked at herself in the mirror, told herself that this would be an excellent opportunity to turn over a new leaf and stop starting things with people with whom she had any form of professional relationship, and actually taken her own advice).  She was sure that she would have heard it back in the fall, when she’d picked up that guy in the bar, if that had been a story that she would ever voluntarily share with her mother (it had been so long, and she’d wanted to be touched, but it hadn’t made her feel good; they’d barely gotten started when she’d made up an excuse to get rid of him, not her finest hour).  Never any disapproval in her words.  Always that same flat voice. 

She sighed.  “Mom, please,” she said.  “Don’t.”

“What do you mean, don’t?” her mother asked.  “I just said he sounded nice.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Mom,” she said.  “Please don’t do this.  You’re not making any of this easy for me.”

Silence on the other end of the line.  “I’m not trying to make things hard for you, sweetheart,” her mother said at last.  “It just seems like you’re not that happy.”

“I think you’re the one who’s not happy,” she said.  “I’m fine.”  She really wouldn’t call herself unhappy.  Unhappiness was active, not passive.  It was a sharp pain, a helpless quest, the straining to reach for something that no longer existed; it wasn’t days that felt the same, evenings that stretched out quiet and long, a life with its share of dull or lonely moments but also its share of rewards.  She’d been unhappy.  This wasn’t that.

“I’ve seen you better,” her mother said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, and then she took a breath and steadied her voice.  “I didn’t mean to snap, Mom,” she said.  “But this is what it is.  It’s done.  I made my choice.”  They hadn’t come even this close to talking about it since it had happened: since she’d gone to her mother’s house to tell her that she had left, that she’d tried so hard for so long but that she no longer saw any other way.  Her mother had said that she understood.  She didn’t think she really did.  At the time, she tried to cut her some slack, to think about how long her mother had been attached to the idea of the two of them as a couple, maybe even longer than she had been herself.  Now she was tired of being understanding.  “Seeing new people isn’t going to…I’d feel the same way even if I weren’t seeing anyone.  But it would really help if you could try to get used to the idea.”

“It’s been so long,” her mother said, almost helplessly.

“Believe me, I know,” she said.  “Everyone meets on the internet now.”  A trite observation, she knew, but her mother managed a chuckle at it.  “This isn’t about the past.  I’m trying to look at it all as a new thing.  But it’s a little…could you try to look at it that way too?”

Her mother didn’t say whether she could or she couldn’t.   But she did say, with what was clearly an effort to put a little more enthusiasm into her voice, “So did you meet—what did you say his name was?”

“Paul.”

“Did you meet Paul on the internet?”

She laughed.  “No.  I’m not quite there yet.  At a lecture.”

“He’s intellectual,” her mother said.

“Yes.”

“And you like him?” her mother asked, quietly.

“Yes,” she said.  “I do.”

And it was true, she thought once they’d talked about a few other things and said goodbye.  She did like Paul.  Liked him plenty.  Liked him in a simple way, a way that she didn’t think too much about, a way that was easy enough when her mother didn’t manage to infuse everything with wishing for what had been.

It was the silliest thing in the world to make comparisons.  She’d been on three dates with Paul.  Three dates couldn’t be anything like twenty-two years. 

But that was silly too—making the length of time the excuse.  As if, once she’d known him longer, her relationship with Paul would be like her relationship with Mulder.  It wouldn’t, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing.  She didn’t want to be bored, but she wouldn’t mind being tranquil.  She wouldn’t mind a life where work and leisure and love stayed put in their spaces, where they didn’t blend into one consuming whole before you knew they’d done it.  No, she wouldn’t mind it.  You couldn’t expect something like what she’d had with Mulder to happen to you twice. 

She didn’t want it to happen to her twice.

It had happened once, and when her mother talked in that wistful way she sometimes made it seem like that once was enough to cling to.  She made it seem like you could sustain yourself on what was left of the past, as though you were scraping the last bits of a meal from your plate.

But you couldn’t do that.  She knew it better than anyone: sometimes those last bits were not enough.  If she looked far enough back, sure, it had been wonderful, but at the end it hadn’t been wonderful at all, she wouldn’t have left if it had been wonderful, and since her mother hadn’t been there in the house with them she had no right to make her feel…

No.  Living in the past wouldn’t do any good.  Making herself into a nun would be idiotic.  Getting back out there was the right choice for her, and she really did have a good feeling about Paul.  When they’d had dinner last night, they’d talked and talked until it became clear that the restaurant wanted the table.  It had been a nice night, though, so they’d continued the conversation as he walked her back to her apartment by a circuitous route and said good night with a lingering kiss.

Her phone buzzed: voicemail.  She pressed play.

“Hi, Dana, it’s Paul.  I hope you’re having a good morning.  The Symphony’s doing a Brahms concert this week—would you like to go with me?  Does Thursday sound good?  Anyway, give me a call when you get this.  I can’t wait to see you again…You looked gorgeous last night, Dana.”  It was still funny to hear.  “Anyway, talk to you soon.  Bye.”

She pressed stop on the message, carefully.  Then she laid her phone down on the table again.


End file.
